In the national discussion over the national-security state’s massive surveillance scheme over the American people, it’s imperative that we keep in mind how the national-security state’s foreign policy of empire and interventionism play into how we have ended up with an Orwellian system of national surveillance at the hands of the federal government.

How are statists justifying the NSA’s surveillance over the American people? Not surprisingly, they’re saying it’s all designed to “keep us safe.” The federal monitoring of everyone, they say, enables them to catch a small number of people who are planning terrorist attacks. Never mind, of course, that all that monitoring didn’t prevent the Boston bombing.

A critically important question has to be asked: Why are there people who are initiating terrorist attacks against the United States?

The answer is a simple one: Because the U.S. national-security state is killing, torturing, abusing, humiliating, impoverishing, and destroying people in foreign countries through such policies as coups, support of dictatorships, regime-change operations, interference with internal politics, intervention in foreign disputes, assassinations, torture, rendition, indefinite detention, secret imprisonment, and so forth.

The foreign victims of those policies get angry. A certain percentage of them go on the rampage with acts of anti-American terrorism. That’s in fact what the Boston bombings were all about. And the Ft. Hood killings. And the Detroit and New York City would-be bombers. And 9/11. And the USS Cole. And the attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa. And Benghazi.

I hear you’re a little miffed at Obama’s National Security Agency collecting phone records of millions of innocent American Verizon customers. I read some comments on the “bombshell” over at Townhall.com. Guy Benson seems displeased.

I hear ya!

I’m more than a little perturbed myself. I was always under the impression that the Fourth Amendment limited the federal government’s power to snoop around in innocent people’s private affairs without a warrant.

But I have to admit, I’m a little confused about your indignation. After all, you made it all possible!

Remember the Patriot Act?

Yup. It was your guy, George W. Bush, who insisted the feds needed these broad, sweeping powers to “protect us from the terrorists.” When civil libertarians protested and invoked the Constitution, you ridiculed them and swore it was “only for the terrorists.” You insisted these powers were absolutely necessary to “keep us safe.” I guess you never stopped to think “your guy” wouldn’t remain in power forever.

A bill has passed through the Texas State Senate that aims to protect the privacy of their residents from the police state by instituting strict limitations on the use of unmanned drones in surveillance by law enforcement.

Dubbed the ‘Texas Privacy Act’, H.B. 912 is an attempt to rein in potential abuses related to the rapidly-developing drone technology that has made its hands into the hands of government at the state and federal levels. The bill was originally authored by Rep. Gooden (R-District 4) and has amassed over 100 co-sponsors since it was introduced Feb. 1, showing vast and bipartisan support for stopping the government’s Orwellian takeover of our skies.

The House passed the bill by a vote of 128-11 on May 10th. (roll call here) And last Friday the Senate passed a slightly amended version of the bill by a vote of 29-1. (roll call here). HB912 will now go back to the State House to either concur on the amendments or form a conference committee to approve a final version acceptable to both the House and Senate. Then it’s off to Governor Perry’s desk for a signature.

BILL INFORMATION

The bill states that “a person commits an offense if the person uses or authorizes the use of an unmanned vehicle or aircraft to capture an image without the express consent of the person who owns or lawfully occupies the real property captured in the image.” The offender would be charged with a Class C misdemeanor if they were caught violating this part of the law.

Data gathered by law enforcement illegally ‘may not be used as evidence in any criminal or juvenile proceeding, civil action, or administrative proceeding’ according to the bill and ‘is not subject to discovery, subpoena, or other means of legal compulsion for its release.’ This incentivizes police to not misuse the drone technology unless they wish to risk jeopardizing their entire investigation.

Oh the irony to think that the capital city of these united states will be nullifying their own law even while their agents are raiding dispensaries in the states. The voters in the city of DC approved medical Marijuana in 1998, and finally all of the licensing is complete. The dispensary by the name of Capital City Care will be the first to open on the 22nd of April within blocks of the White House, and with a clear view of the US Capital. This will be a hugevictory for the forces of liberty, in the face of the growing police state.

After resisting the clear will of the American people for so long, DC could have to call it quits and accept the demise of the war on drugs (police state), as they join the 18 states that have already nullified the war on pot (as a legal drug) . As I have always said, weed is much like the war on drugs.

Respectable opinion on weed seems to be that it is a “gateway drug”. This is meant to give the impression that one puff of it will lead one through a gateway and down a path towards desperation, and dependence upon drugs for daily functioning. Doing unspeakable things for the next hit of your current drug of choice. Theft and violence will become the life of the addict or so says this paradigm. In reality it is the war on drugs that is the gateway, it is a gateways towards tyranny, and authoritarianism.

It is ironically the so called “Constitutional” Conservative who are the biggest cheerleaders for this insane policy. Even as they hold the correct position on so many policies that you should not pile additional laws on already illegal behavior (such as opposing gun control because murder is already illegal, or opposing hate crimes because the crimes they punish are already illegal.) None the less they point towards the culture of crime that surrounds the drug trade (as surrounds all black markets regardless of the banned items for sale) and say “look drugs cause murders and robberies.” Murder and theft are already illegal, so why is that an argument for prohibition?

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I was several blocks away at a bar when the bombs exploded, having finished my fourth Boston Marathon about an hour earlier. I was fatigued but enjoying the table fellowship of my fellow runners, telling stories, drinking Guinness and thinking all was right in the world. The bombs, by all accounts cowardly planted by two Chechen brothers, tore through that serenity and replaced it with tears, anger and fear.

Two days have now passed since the brothers were neutralized, one dead, the other hospitalized in serious condition. The media gave us a morbidly fascinating window to the action, a real life Running Man, where the bad guys were pursued in house-to-house searches with military precision courtesy of the billions in tax dollars that perfected the security-surveillance state we call America. Michel Foucalt was presciently right; we are living in a Panopticon.

Companion bills in the Minnesota State House and Senate aim to curtail potential abuses by law enforcement pertaining to predator drones.

HF 612 and SF 485 were both introduced last month and they hope to specify guidelines to protect the privacy rights of Minnesotans. HF 612 has been referred to the Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee while SF 485 has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bills state that “law enforcement agency may not use a drone to gather evidence or other information on individuals.” This is meant to safeguard individual citizens from excessive spying by law enforcement. However, some exceptions are given for law enforcement personnel to use drones.

Such exceptions include if it is necessary “to counter a high risk of a terrorist attack by a specific individual or organization if the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security determines that credible intelligence indicates that there is this risk” or “if the law enforcement agency first obtains a search warrant authorizing its use” or “if the law enforcement agency possesses reasonable suspicion that, under particular circumstances, swift action is needed to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or the
destruction of evidence.”

Although these exceptions may seem like they could be prone to abuse (ie. DHS fabricating evidence to show that a political dissident is involved in terrorism), Subsection 4 of the bill states that “A person aggrieved by a law enforcement agency’s violation of this section may bring a civil action against the agency.” This will hopefully give the public some recourse in fighting back against unlawful infringements on their rights if the bills are passed. The bills also make evidence collected in violation of these new rules inadmissible in the court of law.

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Question: What do backscatter “naked” x-ray machines and unmanned aerial vehicles, known as drones, have in common?

Answer: They’re both technology originally used to control dangerous populations, such as convicted criminals or enemy combatants…that are now being used on regular American citizens on American soil.

We all see the banned-in-Europe backscatter x-ray machines in common use at American airports. Fortunately, we’re on track to phase them out this year in favor of less invasive technology.

But believe it or not, drones are already here, invading our skies and our privacy—without a warrant, without probable cause, and without our consent. And federal, state, and local government and corporate use of them is set to expand exponentially.

After the hoopla of our undeclared drone wars abroad, it’s clear that U.S. political leaders—including our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president and a regretfully sold-out, emasculated Congress—think drones don’t count. Not when they target strangers in Pakistan. Not when a 16-year-old American citizen is killed by one in Yemen. Not when bystanders are blown apart as blast-radius collateral damage.

And not when drones are deployed in American airspace.

I guess we could just be glad they’re not currently shooting at us. But reports indicate we could have as many as 30,000 drones operating in U.S. airspace in a matter of years. And that makes me a bit fidgety.

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A bill introduced in the North Dakota State House of Representatives looks to protect the privacy of its residents from the police state by making a set of guidelines for the use of unmanned drones in surveillance by law enforcement.

House Bill 1373 was introduced by Reps. Becker, Anderson, Beadle, Heilman, Hofstad, Monson, Rohr, Toman, Hanson and Sen. Sitte. It was first read on Jan. 21 and referred to the Judiciary Committee where no action has presently been taken.

The bill comes in response to the growing national concern over predator drones, the controversial machines used to drop bombs onto people in foreign lands, coming to American skies en masse. Public safety concerns abound after repeated instances of crashes both domestic and abroad. Another troubling bit of information is that the Air Force maintains the right to spy on and collect data from drone missions about American citizens without so much as a warrant for up to 90 days as long as they claim it wasn’t intentional.

The text of HB 1373 states that “except as provided in section 4 of this Act, a law enforcement agency may not use an unmanned aircraft for surveillance of a person within the state or for the surveillance of personal or business property located within the borders of the state to gather evidence or other information pertaining to criminal conduct.” Section 4 of the Act gives law enforcement the right to use drones for weather-related catastrophes, exigent circumstances requiring reasonable suspecion to prevent immediate danger to life or bodily harm and national border patrol.

In a published FOIA request, an Airman stationed in the UK was investigated after a mental breakdown caused by conflicting values of US military’s mission and her own political beliefs. She was found to sympathize with Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks. She had admitted to communicating her political ideas with various organizations known for anti-war/anti-military sentiments on Twitter and to a UK journalist. She also attended the Julian Assange Trial. However, her own admission and tweets revealed that she was never asked to release any intelligence to these groups and denied volunteering any intelligence to any journalist or group. The US Airforce Office of Special Investigations filed a complaint report on matters alleging “Communicating with the Enemy.”

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) Article 104: Communicating with the Enemy states:

“Any person who–
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.”

Who is the enemy in this document? Is it Julian Assange? Wikileaks? Journalists? Bloggers? Social media users? Those opposed to an unconstitutional and failed foreign policy? Anti-war organizations? The leaked document does not directly point to any person or organization but acknowledges who the Airman was in contact with and her activities surrounding her political beliefs. But, constitutionally speaking, who gets to determine the enemy?

The Constitution does not provide any structure to determine an enemy. An enemy could be those the US is at war with. Congress has the power to declare war but there is no framework as to what constitutes a declaration of war. In Federalist Paper number 3, it states, “The just causes of war, for the most part, arise either from violation of treaties or from direct violence.”

With the Obama administration winning a second term and gun control publicly on the national agenda, more and more people are standing up at the state and local levels to protect Constitutional freedoms. This is exactly what is occurring in the small town of Gilberton, Pennsylvania.

Chief of Police Mark Kessler will propose a ’2nd Amendment Preservation’ Ordinance during the January 24, 2013 meeting of city council. According to the text of the ordinance, it will be ‘nullifying all federal, state or local acts in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States along with section 21 Right to Bear Arms of the Pennsylvania constitution.’

The ordinance continues on with some strong words for the authoritarians in Washington D.C. who wish to trample upon the Constitutional rights of Americans saying, “It shall be the duty of the Governing body of Gilberton Borough and within all of its boundaries within the State of Pennsylvania to adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of any federal, state or local acts, laws, orders, rules, or regulations in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States along with section 21 of the Pennsylvania Constitution or any violation of this ordinance.” You can read the rest of the bill by clicking HERE.

Police Chief Kessler says that he intends for this bill to send a message to the Federal Government that the spirit of resistance is alive and well within the American people